


Inside the Pandorica

by daleksigma



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Episode: s05e12 The Pandorica Opens, Episode: s05e13 The Big Bang, Gen, The Pandorica
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-10
Updated: 2014-11-10
Packaged: 2018-02-24 19:30:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2593610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daleksigma/pseuds/daleksigma
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How exactly did the Doctor know that the Pandorica forces you to go on living? Here's how. A scene from the Doctor's perspective between The Pandorica Opens and The Big Bang.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Inside the Pandorica

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little idea I had about the ending of The Pandorica Opens and the Doctor's connection with the TARDIS.

“Every star will supernova. Every moment in history will never have happened. Please! Listen to me!”

The doors to the Pandorica shut anyway, slowly closing in on him. The last sight he saw was the alliance, watching coolly beneath the ceiling of the Underhenge. It might be the last thing he ever saw that wasn’t the inside of these walls. The last sight he ever saw was going to be his enemies, victorious over him at last.

He mentally slapped himself, as he was wont to physically do. He supposed he would have actually slapped himself if his hands weren’t stuck in their restraints. He wasn’t going to give up. River needed him. Amy needed him. Plastic robot roman Rory needed him. The universe—or whatever would be left of it by the time he got himself out—needed him. This wasn’t going to end here.

He still had his sonic screwdriver in his jacket pocket. He set out immediately trying to get it out. He succeeded in scraping up his wrists a lot and almost pulling a muscle in one of his shoulders, but the screwdriver remained put. Stupid, stupid Doctor. There was no way a sonic was going to get him out of the most secure prison in the universe.

But what else did he have? He’d scanned the Pandorica himself. Eternity could pass outside and nothing would impact on the world inside here. If only his mind wasn’t so quick to do calculations, he wouldn’t have realized that it would take at least another thousand years for him to die of old age. Which should have been comforting, but with darkness pressing down all around him and no way to get out, wasn’t exactly.

 _Calm down, Doctor. Think._ That was getting harder and harder. He vainly struggled at wrenching his hands out of their tight metal bands, but only succeeded in getting himself into a more frenzied panic. “Amy! Rory! River! Please someone!” He screamed into the darkness. There was no answer; of course, there would never be.

Eventually, he went limp, exhausted. His voice was hoarse from yelling into a darkness through which no one could hear.

The universe was going to end. He’d always been able to stop catastrophes before. He’d saved the earth from the Daleks, from the Master, from the Cybermen. He’d destroyed his own planet to save the universe at the end of the Last Great Time War. Was that going to be for nothing now that his own TARDIS was going to end time by herself?

His TARDIS. Somewhere out there, she was exploding. Was going to explode. Had already exploded. All three, he supposed. He was still connected to her. He hadn’t felt the mental link short out when the doors had closed. Why hadn’t he felt anything? His TARDIS was dying, and he had no idea where or why.

Almost as soon as the thought had crossed his mind, he felt it. He had thought he’d lost the TARDIS before, on the Dalek Crucible, and yet felt nothing. This was real. He could hear the TARDIS screaming inside his head, breaking into a million pieces.

It should have killed him, the pain. And that was when he realized: inside the Pandorica, it was impossible even to die. Not even death could break him out of this. There was no hope, not ever. As the pain subsided and he lay there, as stuck as ever, the Doctor did what he had never once before done in his life: he gave up hope.

And that was when the doors to the Pandorica began to open again.


End file.
